Caterpillar to bring vocational truck business in house

Caterpillar has announced it will begin independently designing and manufacturing its vocational truck product family at a company-owned excavator plant in Texas.

To date, the company had been working with fellow OEM Navistar for the products’ design and build, which are currently manufactured in Escobedo, Mexico.

“We appreciate the collaboration we have had with Navistar,” said Chris Chadwick, Caterpillar’s director of the Global On-Highway Truck Group.

“As we look to future launches of new truck models, this updated strategy will better position us to help provide our customers with the best products and services for this market. Caterpillar continues to drive the design phase of all models, both current and planned.”

Caterpillar launched its first vocational truck, the CT660, in the North American market in 2011. Two more models have since been added to the line-up, the CT680 and CT681.

In the US, they are now widely used in heavy-duty applications such as dump trucks, mixers or haulers, said Chadwick.

According to US industry resource Truckinginfo, Caterpillar’s go-it-alone vocational truck series will be “virtually identical” to current Cat Trucks for the time bing, using the same components as now until changes come about in the future.

Cat Trucks in Australia, meanwhile, clarified that Navistar will continue to manufacture and develop Cat Trucks for the Australian market.

“The Cat-branded trucks supplied to Australian, New Zealand and Pacific markets are completely different models to the Cat vocational range which is a uniquely Caterpillar product,” commented Glen Sharman, Director of Sales, Marketing and Business Development for Navistar Auspac.

“Cat trucks are a valuable and ongoing part of Navistar Auspac’s plans for today and tomorrow and any assumptions or speculation otherwise are completely mistaken."

Image courtesy of Caterpillar.

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